Believe 'A Calorie Is a Calorie'?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-lustig-md/sugar-toxic_b_2759564.html?utm_hp_ref=fb&src=sp&comm_ref=false#sb=2928504,b=facebook

A long article, but worth reading...

Here are some excerpts. Do check out the article for a clearer context....

Fiber. You eat 160 calories in almonds, but you absorb only 130. The fiber in the almonds delays absorption of calories into the bloodstream, delivering those calories to the bacteria in your intestine, which chew them up. Because a calorie is not a calorie.

Protein. When it comes to food, you have to put energy in to get energy out. You have to put twice as much energy in to metabolize protein as you do carbohydrate; this is called the thermic effect of food. So protein wastes more energy in its processing. Plus protein reduces hunger better than carbohydrate. Because a calorie is not a calorie.

Fat. All fats release nine calories per gram when burned. But omega-3 fats are heart-healthy and will save your life, while trans fats clog your arteries, leading to a heart attack. Because a calorie is not a calorie.

Sugar. This is the "big kahuna" of the "big lie." Sugar is not one chemical. It's two. Glucose is the energy of life. Every cell in every organism on the planet can burn glucose for energy. Glucose is mildly sweet, but not very interesting (think molasses). Fructose is an entirely different animal. Fructose is very sweet, the molecule we seek. Both burn at four calories per gram. If fructose were just like glucose, then sugar or high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) would be just like starch. But fructose is not glucose. Because a calorie is not a calorie.

....For instance, the increase in sugar consumption over the past 30 years paralleled the increase in obesity, diabetes and heart disease.... But correlation is not causation. Which direction do the data go? Does sugar cause obesity and metabolic disease? Or do obese people with metabolic disease drink soda?

"What in the world's food supply explains diabetes rates, country-by-country, over the last decade?" ...
...We assessed total calories; meat (protein); oils (fat); cereals (glucose); pulses, nuts, vegetables, roots, and tubers (fiber); fruit excluding wine (natural sugar); and sugar, sugarcrops, and sweeteners (added sugar). We controlled for poverty, urbanization, aging, and most important, obesity and physical activity.

Bottom line -- only changes in sugar availability explained changes in diabetes prevalence worldwide; nothing else mattered.

Total caloric availability was unrelated to diabetes prevalence; for every extra 150 calories per day, diabetes prevalence rose by only 0.1 percent. But if those 150 calories per day happened to be a can of soda, diabetes prevalence rose 11-fold, by 1.1 percent (and Americans on average consume the added sugar equivalent of 2.5 cans of soda per day, so that's 2.75 percent!). And this effect of sugar was exclusive of obesity; controlling for body mass index did not negate the effect. Even more important, we showed that the change in sugar availability preceded the change in diabetes (that's cause, not effect); and we showed directionality -- those countries where sugar availability rose showed increases in diabetes, while those where sugar availability fell showed decreases in diabetes. This is a very robust signal, with little noise. While epidemiology can't prove scientific causation, the data allow for objective inference. Sugar drives diabetes worldwide, and unrelated to its calories.

The food industry has contaminated the American food supply with added sugar to "sell more product" and thereby uphold their Wall Street mandate to increase profits. Of the 600,000 food items in the American grocery store, 80 percent have been spiked with added sugar; and the industry uses 56 other names for sugar on the label. They know when they add sugar, you buy more. And because you do not know you're buying it, you buy even more.....

A calorie is a calorie is absolutely true as a statement of physics. Whether it is a vegetable or a fruit or a piece of meat or whatever, the cals in a given piece of food are exactly the same in terms of energy. As has been stated many times.

For all the "a calorie is a calorie" folks ... AND for all the "a calorie is not a calorie" ..... a reminder of the definition of a calorie:

a unit of heat, equal to 4.1868 joules. It was formerly defined as the quantity of heat required to raise the temperature of 1 gram of water by 1°C under standard conditions.

In other words, a calorie merely measures, in 9th grade science terms, whether 1000 of them, when burned, will produce enough heat to raise 1 gram of waters temp by 1 degree celsius. That's all a calorie measures.

That said, how your body uses the various nutrients put in your body, how much insulin is produced, how testosterone and estrogen intersect with insulin to store fat appropriate to your gender, and so forth are very different things. Your body is not so simple as burning the food in a lab environment to determine it's calories.

Even the idea that your body will lose or gain the same amount of weight based purely on calories and having nothing to do with the nutrient balance of your food intake is a bad one. It certainly does not take into account the biological reality of how the body's metabolic and digestive systems work.

In other words, both sets of arguments are correct. Yes, a calorie is a measurement of energy units that is the same across all food types. And, actually across all materials, period. A rock, for example, contains X calories using the above discussed formulas. Although the human body can't really process a rock as energy.

This fact, indeed, gives the lie to the idea that just eat X number of calories, expend Y number of calories, subtract one from the other and you will determine if you are going to lose or gain weight. If you expend 2500 calories a day in total energy expenditure, and you consume 3000 calories a day of gravel and wood, I promise you will not gain one pound a week of weight.

HOW your body metabolizes the materials we put in to it is a huge factor in whether we gain or lose weight, what sorts (i.e. muscle, fat, water) of weight we gain or lose, and how healthy we are. Calories should be used as a very rough yardstick to govern the quantity of food your body needs per day. Nothing more and nothing less.